Joel Barlow

Biography of Joel Barlow

Joel Barlow was an American poet, diplomat and politician.In his own time, Barlow was well known for the epic Vision of Columbus. Modern readers may be more familiar with "The Hasty Pudding" (1793). He also partly drafted the Treaty of Tripoli, which includes the controversial and disputed phrase: "...the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...".

Biography

Barlow was born in Redding, Fairfield County, Connecticut. He briefly attended Dartmouth College before graduating from Yale University in 1778, where he was also a post-graduate student for two years. In 1778, he published an anti-slavery poem entitled "The Prospect of Peace." From September 1780 until the close of the revolutionary war was chaplain in a Massachusetts brigade. He then, in 1783, moved to Hartford, Connecticut, established there in July 1784 a weekly paper, the American Mercury, with which he was connected for a year, and in 1786 was admitted to the bar.

At Hartford he was a member of a group of young writers including Lemuel Hopkins, David Humphreys, and John Trumbull, known in American literary history as the "Hartford Wits". He contributed to the Anarchiad, a series of satirico-political papers, and in 1787 published a long and ambitious poem, The Vision of Columbus, which gave him a considerable literary reputation and was once much read. Barlow died of pneumonia in the village of Zarnowiec, between Warsaw and Kraków, on December 24, 1812.

Poetry

In 1807 he had published in a sumptuous volume the Columbiad, an enlarged edition of his Vision of Columbus, more pompous even than the original; but, though it added to his reputation in some quarters, on the whole it was not well received, and it has subsequently been much ridiculed. The poem for which he is now best known is his mock heroic Hasty Pudding (1793). Besides the writings mentioned above, he published Conspiracy of Kings, a Poem addressed to the Inhabitants of Europe from another Quarter of the Globe (1792); View of the Public Debt, Receipts and Expenditure of the United States (1800); the Political Writings of Joel Barlow were published (2nd ed., 1796) but much of his speculation never passed beyond his voluminous notebooks, many of which are conserved in Harvard's Houghton Library.

Diplomacy

In 1788 he went to France as the agent of the Scioto Land Company, his object being to sell lands and enlist immigrants. He seems to have been ignorant of the fraudulent character of the company, which failed disastrously in 1790. He had previously, however, induced the company of Frenchmen, who ultimately founded Gallipolis, Ohio, to emigrate to America. In Paris he became a liberal in religion and an advanced republican in politics. He helped Thomas Paine publish the first part of The Age of Reason while Paine was imprisoned during The Reign of Terror. He remained abroad for several years, spending much of his time in London; was a member of the London Society for Constitutional Information; published various radical essays, including a volume entitled Advice to the Privileged Orders (1792), which was proscribed by the British government; and was made a citizen of France in 1792.

He was American consul at Algiers in 1795-1797, securing the release of American prisoners held for ransom, and negotiating a treaty with Tripoli (1796). He returned to America in 1805, and lived at his home, Kalorama in what is now the city of Washington, D.C., until 1811, when he became American minister plenipotentiary to France, charged with negotiating a commercial treaty with Napoleon, and with securing the restitution of confiscated American property or indemnity therefor. He was summoned for an interview with Napoleon at Wilna, but failed to see the emperor there; became involved in the retreat of the French army; and, overcome by exposure, died at the Polish village of Żarnowiec.

Anno 1812, Decembris 26 at 1 o'clock P.M. before us the rector of the Zarnowiec parish and civil recorder of the village of Zarnowiec, Pilica County, Department of Cracow, there came Hon. John Blaski, postmaster and Mayor of the village Zarnowiec, residing here and thirty-six years old, and Idzi Baiorkiewicz, residing at his farm of two quarts at Zarnowiec and thirty-three years old, and declared that his Excellency, Joel Barlow, Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Emperor of the French and King of Italy, died on the above day at 12 o'clock at noon in the house No. 1 while journeying from Warsaw to Paris, at the age of fifty-six, son of unknown parents, and husband of her Excellency Mrs. Margaret nee Baldwin, residing in the American city of Ridgefield. After reading this to the present we undersigned it with the witnesses, Rev. Stanislaus Bajorski, civil recorder; John Blaski, witness; Idzi Baiorkiewicz, witness.
Joel Barlow was painted by Robert Fulton and John Vanderlyn (1798).

Legacy

Barlow, Ohio is named in his honor.
He was one of the contributing editors of the first agricultural magazine in America, the Agricultural Museum.
Joel Barlow High School in Redding, CT

Joel Barlow's Works:

Conspiracy of Kings, a Poem addressed to the Inhabitants of Europe from another Quarter of the Globe (1792)
View of the Public Debt, Receipts and Expenditure of the United States (1800)
the Political Writings of Joel Barlow (2nd ed., 1796)

Joel Barlow Poems

Advice To A Raven In Russia (1812)
Black fool, why winter here? These frozen skies,
Worn by your wings and deafen'd by your cries,
Should warn you hence, where milder suns invite,

The Hasty Pudding
Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise,
To cramp the day and hide me from the skies;

Psalm Cxxxvii The Babylonian Captivity
ALONG the banks where Babel's current flows
Our captive bands in deep despondence stray'd,
While Zion's fall in sad remembrance rose,
Her friends, her children mingled with the dead.

The Columbiad: Book X
Hesper again his heavenly power display'd,
And shook the yielding canopy of shade.
Sudden the stars their trembling fires withdrew.

The Columbiad: Book I
I sing the Mariner who first unfurl'd
An eastern banner o'er the western world,
And taught mankind where future empires lay

Vision Of Columbus - Book 1
Long had the Sage, the first who dared to brave
The unknown dangers of the western wave,
Who taught mankind where future empires lay

The Columbiad: Book Ii
High o'er his world as thus Columbus gazed,
And Hesper still the changing scene emblazed,
Round all the realms increasing lustre flew,

The Columbiad: Book Viii
Hail, holy Peace, from thy sublime abode
Mid circling saints that grace the throne of God!
Before his arm around our embryon earth

The First American Congress
Columbus looked; and still around them spread,
From south to north, th' immeasurable shade;
At last, the central shadows burst away,

Vision Of Columbus - Book 9
Now, round the yielding canopy of shade,
Again the Guide his heavenly power display'd.
Sudden, the stars their trembling fires withdrew,

Vision Of Columbus – Book 2
High o'er the changing scene, as thus he gazed,
The indulgent Power his arm sublimely raised;
When round the realms superior lustre flew,

The Columbiad: Book Vi
But of all tales that war's black annals hold,
The darkest, foulest still remains untold;
New modes of torture wait the shameful strife,
And Britain wantons in the waste of life.

Vision Of Columbus - Book 4
In one dark age, beneath a single hand,
Thus rose an empire in the savage land.
Her golden seats, with following years, increase,

Vision Of Columbus - Book 5
Columbus hail'd them with a father's smile,
Fruits of his cares and children of his toil;
With tears of joy, while still his eyes descried

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The Columbiad: Book Iii

The Argument

Actions of the Inca Capac. A general invasion of his dominions threatened by the mountain savages. Rocha, the Inca's son, sent with a few companions to offer terms of peace. His embassy. His adventure with the worshippers of the volcano. With those of the storm, on the Andes. Falls in with the savage armies. Character and speech of Zamor, their chief. Capture of Rocha and his companions. Sacrifice of the latter. Death song of Azonto. War dance. March of the savage armies down t